Amazingly Delicious Carmelitas

Posted: March 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Squares & Bars | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Apparently I have been deprived. I had never heard about Carmelitas until about a month ago when I made a trip to Whole Foods with a good friend. We had both run a decent half marathon that day and so she was looking for a treat (I am pretty sure I had something at home that I was indulging in) and bought a Carmelita. I had never heard of such a creation. Even though she is a bit of a food addict, she actually shared a little with me. It was delicious. And I had to figure out how to make them.

However, I hadn’t made any effort to find a recipe when suddenly I saw them posted all over Pinterest. Since I had an upcoming night of food, laughter, gossip & good times with my gym friends planned, I figured it was time to try out a recipe.

Because one of the girls is limiting dairy & gluten, I actually made these gluten free and almost dairy free (they could be dairy free if you use caramel ice cream topping maybe but I don’t know how you could possibly make good caramel without cream or butter!) Basically I just used quinoa flour instead of regular flour and vegan ‘butter’ (Earth Balance) instead of butter. I have put both the regular & the allergen-free options & I am sure the regular would work beautifully.

I chose to use my homemade caramel but you could just buy caramel ice cream topping or melt together 1 pkg of caramel squares (like Kraft) with 1/2 cup cream in a saucepan. I recommend the homemade stuff though. It is the best. It is so delicious. And if you have some leftover, use it as an ice cream topper or just eat it by the spoonful! Or spread it on toast. Or pancakes. Or on a cake. Yum! So good!

I don’t normally like nuts in my desserts & considered leaving them out… but decided against and I was so glad that I did! The nuts add to the perfection of the texture and give such a delicious nuttiness that you definitely should add them!

These were FANTASTIC! I LOVED them and look forward to making them again!

Carmelitas – makes a 9×13″ pan – you decide how big you want them! The recipe can easily be halved and made in a 9×9″ pan

  • 2 cups quinoa flour – or regular all-purpose flour
  • 1 3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
  • 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cup Earth Balance vegan butter or regular unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup additional quick-cooking oats (if needed)
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 3/4 cups chopped pecans
  • 1 1/2 cups caramel sauce (either homemade from here or caramel ice cream topping if you need dairy free or 32 caramel squares melted with 1/2 cup heavy cream)
  • 2 Tb butter (or vegan)
  • 2 1/2 Tb flour (quinoa or regular)
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9×13″ pan with parchment paper (make sure there are pieces that come over the edges on two sides so it is easy to remove.
  2. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, salt and softened butter (or vegan substitute) in the bowl of a mixer. Take half of it and press it into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove & cool slightly.
  3. If your mixture is not crumbly, add the extra oats to the 2nd half. I am not sure if mine wasn’t crumbly because I used vegan butter or if that is just how it ends up. I wanted my topping somewhat crumbly though so I added the extra oats. Add as much as you feel like you need.
  4. Sprinkle the chocolate chips & chopped pecans over the crust.
  5. Melt the caramel enough that you can stir it and then add the additional butter & flour – this step doesn’t seem to be in the recipes that use the ice cream topping or the caramel squares.
  6. Pour the caramel over the chips & nuts and then top with the remaining crumb mixture.
  7. Return to the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes until the crust starts to brown.
  8. Allow to cool completely in the pan. With the homemade caramel, do not put it in the fridge as it will get too hard to cut.
  9. Use the parchment paper to pull the entire pan of carmelitas out of the pan and then cut & serve (I used a pizza cutter and it worked fantastically!)

Chocolate-dipped Rolled Sugar Cookies

Posted: February 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Cookies | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Well it is time for the Hallmark-made holiday! Valentine’s Day yet again, or as I like to call it – Single’s Night at the Gym! I realize that there are many people who don’t celebrate V-day that are in committed relationships still at the gym on Feb 14 but I like to believe it is single’s night. And if it isn’t, why aren’t there single’s nights at the gym??

When I switched from an all women’s gym to a co-ed gym I thought that I would have more opportunities to meet people but instead I think the guys just get more annoyed because I use their equipment rather than staying on the women’s-only side. (They don’t realize that not only do we not have a proper power/squat rack but our free weights only go up to 30lbs.) So for ‘freaks’ like me that like to lift heavy, we are ‘stuck’ sharing the equipment with the meatheads or the groups of guys that seem to spend more time gossiping than actually working out. There are of course some that don’t fall in either of those categories but I just assume they also don’t fall into the ‘single’ category either so then my time spent in their area of the gym goes to waste for meeting purposes (of course it isn’t wasted entirely – I still get a great workout!)

Anyways, back to these cookies. I have made these cookies for years any time that I have wanted cutout cookies and the recipe always works out. They are soft and buttery and tasty without being overly sweet. It comes from allrecipes.com and it is simply called “The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies” and that it is!

Rolled Sugar Cookies (from allrecipes)

  • 3/4 cup butter, room temp
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  1. In the bowl of a mixer (or with a hand mixer) beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Bead in eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl and then add this to the butter/sugar/eggs mix.
  3. Wrap in plastic wrap and refridgerate at least one hour or overnight
  4. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  5. Roll dough out on a WELL-FLOURED surface to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut with desired cookie cutters and place on prepared baking sheets. Reroll dough when necessary.
  6. Bake 6-8 min (careful – if they are thin they will cook fast). Cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
  7. Once cooled, you can either dip them in melted chocolate as I did or you could decorate them with royal icing or you could just eat them plain!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge

Posted: February 4, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Candies | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

I had some ideas earlier in the week as to what I was going to write here but I am blanking now. I know it was something unrelated to the recipe… everyone else goes on about random things on their food blogs that are unrelated so I figured I could start doing that too! But now I am in a bit of a weird mood and am blanking on what it was. So maybe I will just say that this recipe is delicious and you should make it!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge

  • 1 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • 1/4 milk
  • 1 Tb corn syrup
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 Tb butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 flour
  • 1/3 chocolate chips

  1. Beating the cooled syrup

    Line an 8×8″ pan with parchment.

  2. Bring sugar, brown sugar, cream, milk, corn syrup and salt to a boil in a 3-qt saucepan over medium. Stir occasionally with a spatula. Boil to 242 degrees, stir frequently.
  3. Remove from heat and stir in butter, vanilla and flour.
  4. Pour the syrup into a 9×13″ pan (not the parchment lined one 8×8″ one!) and let sit at room temp about 20 minutes. The recipe said to let it cool to 110° but I accidently left it to 90 degrees. Oops. It still worked.
  5. Scrape the batter into a stand mixer. Beat on medium with the paddle attachment until fudge thickens and it holds its shape. This is about 3-5 minutes. Scrape into the 8×8″ pan & spread evenly.
  6. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top and press down lightly.
  7. Let cool completely. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

    Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge

Death by Ferraro Rocher Trifle (or should I call it Nutella Trifle?)

Posted: September 28, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Recipe | Tags: , , | 6 Comments »

Ferraro Rocher Trifle

I have two friends that I bake for regularly that are frequently mentioned in this blog, not by name of course! They, like me, love food and frequently talk about it. I think that this recipe may have been a favourite for one of them – and that is saying A LOT. Every time I have seen them lately, he mentions this dessert and has a new comment about it. He has asked if he can pay me to make it for him so he can take it to potluck dinners – and of course claim that he made it! And really I didn’t even make it as well as I could have – I would have used Frangelico if there weren’t kids eating it!

Anyways, it is based on a chocolate trifle like dessert known as Death by Chocolate (I often just call it “Chocolate Mess” as it ends up looking like that once served) but it is a Chocolate-Hazelnut Trifle rather than just straight up chocolate. Basically I had a layer of my favourite chocolate cake in the freezer and wanted to use it without making anything that would take a ton of time. Also, I had Ferraro Rocher’s that someone had given me but I was afraid to open them as I have a fear that I will eat them all! So put that together with some Nutella and you have “Death by Ferraro Rocher”! Here are the layers:

Chocolate cake layer from the freezer

Chocolate Hazelnut Trifle

Chocolate Cake or Brownies, cut up in 1inch cubes
Use your favourite recipe or just buy a cake mix if you are being lazy! Although you do want a good cake, it isn’t as important to make sure it is moist since everything else in the dessert ensures lots of moisture!

1/2 cup Frangelico, Kahlua, Chocolate Hazelnut Tea (for the kid friendly version!), or any liquid that has a little sweetness/flavour to add

Nutella Cream Cheese Mousse

Nutella Mousse
3/4 cup Nutella
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
4-8 Tb milk/cream
Beat all together until smooth. Add enough milk to ensure a pudding like consistency.

Whipped Cream
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Whip cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar and vanilla and beat a little more but not too much!

 6 Ferraro Rocher’s, chopped roughly

Cake, mousse, whipped cream, Ferraro Rochers, Repeat!

Assembly:

  1. Arrange half of the chocolate cake pieces in the bottom of your bowl (I like using my trifle bowl but any deep bowl will do – it is nice to use a clear one so you can see the pretty layers!).
  2. Drizzle 4 Tb of Frangelico/whatever you are using over the top of the cake pieces.
  3. Spread half of the Nutella mousse over the cake evenly. I tend to put it in ‘glops’ and then spread it out evenly.
  4. Spread half of the whipped cream over the mousse.
  5. Sprinkle half of the chopped Ferraro Rocher’s over the whipped cream.
  6. Repeat all layers.
  7. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. You can make it ahead of time and refrigerate overnight too.

Look at those lovely layers of deliciousness!

Wedding #2: Cupcakes were on order!

Posted: August 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cupcakes, Wedding | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Wedding treats!

So after the success of wedding #1, it was on to the easier and less stressful task of wedding #2 this summer. This bride, a friend of mine, wanted cupcakes and had requested chocolate with coconut frosting and whatever else I wanted to make. Well I already posted the chocolate-coconut cupcakes and the other ones I chose to make were a variation on the strawberry cupcakes I previously posted as well. I won’t repost the recipe but rather just some notes on them since they were actually what I called “Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes”.

My stacked fridge! It was hot so I had to make space!

Since the couple was aiming for a “desserts & appies” type of night, I figured cupcakes weren’t enough and made two other creations for the evening, which were Caramel Macchiato Whoopie Pies & the all time favourite Lemon Squares. Of course the Whoopie Pies will have to make an appearance on Let’s Make Whoopie rather than this blog! As for the lemon squares, well I think I will post a couple pics on here but I had a bit of a problem with the lemon squares… I made a double batch of them and therefore made two pans of them. Now here is the weird thing, when I went to cut up the first batch, the entire pan was “inverted”. So the lemon was on the bottom and the crust was on the top. The second pan of them was

about 80% completely fine but at the one end, the same thing had happened – crust on top! So so strange! I have no idea why this happened or what went on but I have found that other people have had the same problem! My only guess is that

upside down lemon squares!

you have to put the lemon filling in the crust while the crust is still hot (it is prebaked). Since I was taking forever to squeeze the lemons, I wasn’t ready with the filling when the crusts were done so they were able to cool. That is the only thing I can think that I did differently from the first time that I made the recipe and they came out PERFECT! So I will not post the recipe here until I know that it works perfectly. I still did take them to the wedding though – the ones that didn’t make nice squares because of the less-than-sturdy base weren’t served there and instead were flipped over, slightly smoothed and taken to my less-than-picky friends! They still tasted amazing but they didn’t look pretty!

More Cupcakes!

I got a little carried away with wanting to do lots of different designs! It was kind of fun but maybe two designs for each flavour would have been better! My favs are the little mini chocolate ones with the little orange rose, or the pink minis with the 2 orange apple blossoms or the ones that just look like big roses (see the pics below! There are big white ones and mini pink ones! I added glitter to them too :) )

Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes

Raspberry cupcakes: these were made using the recipe for the strawberry cupcakes found here but instead of strawberries, I used raspberries. 

Cheesecake Filling: I made a cheesecake filling (beat together 4 oz cream cheese, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg , 1 tsp vanilla) and added a little less than 1 tablespoon to each cupcake prior to baking. The cupcakes don’t look nicely domed after and some end up a little odd shaped, but they taste good!

White Chocolate Buttercream: melt 6 oz white chocolate and allow to cool. Beat on low 1 cup room temp butter, 2 cups of icing sugar, melted white chocolate, and 3 Tb milk until combined. Increase speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

The tiered display

An assortment of minis!

Tea & Coffee Wedding Cake – My first one!

Posted: August 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Wedding | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments »

The Finished Cake

I have done it: made my first wedding cake. It went reasonably well too. I mean, I would have liked the fondant to be smoother and I would have liked to have the confidence to make it more exciting but overall, it looked pretty nice. And the taste! Well, that was more important to me than the look and oh did it taste good! The bride told me that her mom is quite picky about desserts and had been trying to get the bride to tell me to “not make it too sweet” and stuff like that (my friend didn’t pass along anything of the sort – she put a lot of trust in me actually!) but the mother-of-the-bride was extremely happy with it and was thrilled there was some left for them to take home!

So here was the process (sorry that this post may be long – it was a long process!):

  1. Make the cakes!I made three tiers with the bottom being mocha flavoured (14″ round) and the top two tiers being chai tea. Now do you get why I called it my Tea & Coffee wedding cake? I had to make a triple batch of the mocha cake for two layers of 14″ rounds and a 2.5 batch of the chai spiced cake for the other two tiers. (Note: the 14″ volume is actually larger than the two smaller layers put together). I made the cakes on the Sunday before the wedding (which was held on Saturday), allowed them to cool, and wrapped them very well (a LOT of Saran Wrap!) and froze them. I knew that I wouldn’t

    A lot of frozen cakes!

    have time to bake them all later in the week. The baking alone took about 7 hours!!

  2. Make fondant roses. This is not something I love doing. In fact, I think I would just buy real roses in the future instead. These took around 8 hours to make! Since the colours were supposed to be red & gold, I made the roses in a couple shades of red. Overall I did like the effect of the cluster of them on the top of the cake but they are too much work and I am not all that great at them.
  3. Make the icing. This was where I became exceedingly grateful for owning a KitchenAid mixer. The cappuccino icing/filling for the mocha cake was easy enough but the Honey Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the Chai cake involved beating the egg whites for an excessively long time!

    Latte icing for the chocolate cake

  4. Ice the cakes. This wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it would be. I thought with a giant cake it might be a little trickier but it was fine. First though I had to make sure that all three tiers would end up the same size. So I carved down the layers that were a little too thick and made sure they were level. Also, each tier goes on a cardboard cake base (basically you then ice to the width of the board and make sure the fondant covers it). I then put a thin layer of honey on the chai cakes and piping gel on the mocha cake to make sure that the fondant stuck.

    The top tier is iced & 'honeyed'

    Honey Buttercream for the Chai Tea cake

  5. Fondant the cakes! I had bought Satin Ice fondant this time instead of the Wilton I had used in the past. It smelled delicious! I had bought the vanilla buttercream flavour and although it still had that weird fondant texture, it did taste better (Wilton is tasteless – just sweet).  This was a little

    The fondant

    frustrating as I wanted it to be perfect and I knew it wouldn’t be. Also, fondant attracts lint and hair like crazy and having two cats makes it incredibly frustrating! I did manage to keep it fur free though (I think/hope). After finishing the fondant, I covered the cakes and refridgerated them overnight (normally fondant cakes don’t need to be kept cool but it was pretty hot here and I didn’t want to take the chance). I had planned on making Royal Icing and doing some designs but I decided I could keep this first one simple and plain.

  6. Insert the dowels. Since the cakes are heavy with all of that cake, icing & fondant, you can’t just pile them on top of each other as the bottom tier will

    The tiers are ready to go! You can see where the dowels are.

    collapse and buckle. Thankfully they make dowels for cakes. You can buy wooden ones but I opted for the ones that are basically like giant, hard straws. You basically insert them into the cake and push them to the bottom. Mark the side where the top of the cake reaches to and then cut them off a little shorter than that. Push them back in. I was a little paranoid so I likely used more than I needed in the bottom tier but it didn’t collapse! After inserting the dowels, the holes are covered with a little buttercream.

  7. Make the “topper”. Since the couple didn’t have a topper, I figured I would use the fondant roses on the top. I took some of the cake that was carved off the top of a layer that was too thick and made a mound of cake/icing. I wrapped this in fondant. Since the roses are made on toothpicks, I used these to hold the roses in place in my ‘mound of cake & icing & fondant’. It worked like a charm. Sadly I realized I needed more roses at the last minute…

    Here's the topper I made with red fondant roses

  8. Stack the tiers. In the afternoon before the evening reception, I went to the reception hall early and set up my cake. There was no way I was going to try to move the cake already stacked! I used a large angled cake spatula to help me out here. It worked well.
  9. Wrap in Ribbon. For the gold, in case you are wondering, I wrapped the tiers in the same ribbon that the couple used on their invitations. I looked around for awhile looking for the perfect ribbon and was suddenly inspired to ask if they had any left over as it was the perfect ribbon for the cake. I measured it out and figured I needed a minimum of 250 cm. Well, the bride has about 270 cm left! It really was the absolute perfect length – I cut the three lengths I needed and had none leftover (but enough to perfectly wrap around)! I think it was meant to be :) The best thing about putting ribbon around the base of the tiers was that it hides all the flaws in the fondant at the bottom! Best idea ever!
  10. Add the topper & other decorations! I put the topper on top and other people brought some rose petals and tealights to decorate the table. Step back so you don’t look at the imperfections so closely. And dim the lights – that helps too!

    It was done... although it looked nicer in the evening when the daylight didn't show the imperfections. Plus the decorations for the table helped!

Ok, so here are the recipes. I am putting the recipe for a normal sized cake rather than the giant ones I did. I ended up doing 2.5 times of each recipe for the amount that I made. (I had to make them in 2 batches as 2.5 didn’t fit in the bowl!)

The chocolate batter: I almost maxed out my mixer!

Rich, moist Mocha Cake

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup cocoa
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • salt
  • 2 tsp espresso powder
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp cappuccino flavour (or another tsp of espresso powder)
  • 1 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 large eggs
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease cake pans and line with parchment paper. This should make a 2 deep or 3 thinner 9″ layers.
  2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, espresso powder & salt.

    Whisk together dry ingredients (if the cocoa is lumpy sift it first!)

  3. In a 2-cup measuring cup, mix together buttermilk, cappuccino flavour and vanilla.
  4. In the bowl of a mixer, beat butter and sugar until blended. Beat about 3 minutes on high until creamy.
  5. Reduce speed to low and add eggs one at a time.
  6. Beat in flour mixture alternatively with buttermilk/vanilla mixture. Start and end with the flour mix.
  7. Pour into prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean about 25-28 minutes (check it at 20 minutes).
  8. Cool in pans 15-20 minutes before removing to cool on racks.

Latte Icing - I added more espresso powder after the picture.

Latte Icing

  • 1 cup butter, room temp
  • 1 tsp cappuccino flavour
  • 1-2 Tb espresso powder (make it to how strong you like it! The flavour will mellow a bit once it is mixed with the cake so make it a little stronger than you would think)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 4 cups icing sugar
  • 2-4 tsp milk/cream/water to thin consistency icing
  1. Beat the butter until creamy and light (at least 3 minutes). Add in the flavourings.
  2. Add 2-3 cups of the sugar 1 cup at a time. Add a bit of liquid. Beat in the rest of the sugar. Add more liquid as needed.

Chai Tea Cake (adapted from Sky-High Cakes as posted on this blog)

The chai cake batter - again almost too high in the bowl!

I like it pretty spicy and although I adapted this to make it spicier, I could still use more in my opinion!

  • 1 1/3 cup milk
  • 4 chai tea bags
  • 4 whole eggs
  • 2 egg yolk
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp chai flavouring (I bought this at a random tea store in Seattle… it is optional!)
  • 2 3/4 cup flour
  • 2 cup sugar
  • 4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 2 tsp. cardamom
  • 3/4 tsp ginger
  • 1/2 tsp cloves
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease pans and line with parchment paper (2 or 3 9″ pans would work great! Of course the 3 pans would make for thin layers while the 2 pans would make for deep layers)
  2. In a saucepan, bring milk to a simmer. Remove from heat and add tea bags. Allow to steep (stir it around some) for about 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags and squeeze out the remaining milk. Allow to cool.
  3. In a small bowl, combine eggs, yolks, vanilla, chai flavour if using, and 1/3 cup of chai milk.
  4. In the bowl of a mixer, whisk together all dry ingredients. Beat in the butter and the remaining milk. Mix on medium until light and fluffy.
  5. Add the egg mixture in three additions.
  6. Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Honey swiss meringue buttercream

  • Honey Swiss Meringue Buttercream

    4 egg whites

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  1. In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, heat the sugar and egg whites. Whisk while heating until 140°F. Remove from heat and transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
  2. Whip the meringue by beating on low to start, until foamy, and then increasing the speed. Beat until stiff, glossy peaks form and the mixture is cooled completely (test by touching the outside of the metal bowl). This takes about 10 minutes.
  3. Mix in the butter a few tablespoons at a time. Beat between each addition until the butter is fully incorporated.
  4. Don’t worry if it looks kind of curdled during the process, keep beating as it will come together at the end.
  5. Slowly pour in the honey while continuing to beat. Add the vanilla. Beat for another 3-4 minutes.
  6. To finish, switch to the paddle attachment and beat a few extra minutes to reduce air bubbles.
There you have it! A delicious coffee & tea cake (or you could just make one or the other!)

The couple (bad picture quality - sorry)

The cut up pieces! Pure Loveliness!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Filling and Coconut Buttercream

Posted: July 27, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Recipe | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Yum... these were good

Although I am unmarried myself, I do generally enjoy weddings. Some may not believe that as sometimes I complain about them (as they are a great reminder of my own single status) but honestly I do like them. But for me it isn’t about any particular detail or the fancy displays or anything, it is about the couple. I love seeing how they customized their wedding to match their personalities and who they are. And I love seeing the look on the groom’s face when the bride comes in!

I have a friend that is getting married in just over three weeks and what she and her soon-to-be husband decided to go with was an evening wedding followed up with desserts, appies and dancing. Although I do enjoy a good meal, I think this is a great idea for them! Neither of them are into the big fancy wedding and this style will be perfect for them. So since my friend knows how much I love baking and that I was taking decorating classes, she asked if I would be willing to make cupcakes for her wedding. Of course I obliged! What a fun opportunity! Of course I didn’t really think about the fact that I don’t really have a favourite chocolate cupcake recipe or that maybe she would want something that I hadn’t perfected already. This was really just an extra challenge though! So there is the reason behind having made 3 different chocolate cake/cupcake recipes recently!

When I finally got around to asking what she actually wanted a couple months back, she immediately said she wanted chocolate cupcakes with coconut icing. This is what she has apparently asked for as a birthday cake/cupcake since she was very young. And this actually made me really happy as I love coconut things but I know that a lot of people aren’t as thrilled by them as I am so I am always hesitant to make coconut things. My own addition to this was to add a chocolate ganache filling to the cupcake. Just a little boost of extra decadence in my mind!

I think this recipe is the one I am sticking with. When I made these cupcakes, the intention was to do a trial run of the cupcakes for a shower for her but I wasn’t positive the recipe would be the one I would use. Well it will be! Even though I liked the other recipes (the chocolate cake in the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake or the Chocolate Cake with the Toasted Marshmallow Filling), this one seems richer, smoother and luxurious. I loved it. And I really LOVED the batter… it is so creamy and delicious. Oops, right, that wasn’t the part I was supposed to be inhaling! And then stuff it full of smooth chocolate ganache and top it with creamy white coconut icing… oh so good! Here’s the recipe:

Luxurious Chocolate Cupcakes (or cake!)

Creamy Delicious Batter

(aka Chocolate Buttermilk Cake from Good Housekeeping Best-Loved Desserts )

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup cocoa
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • salt
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 large eggs
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease cake pans or line cupcake pans with paper liners. I did a combo of 12 mini cupcakes, 12 regulars, and 1-9″ cake pan (lined with parchment paper). The idea is to make a 2-layer pan (they would be pretty deep though!)
  2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda & salt.
  3. In a 2-cup measuring cup, mix together buttermilk and vanilla.

  4. After baking! It makes a good portion of batter

    In the bowl of a mixer, beat butter and sugar until blended. Beat about 3 minutes on high until creamy.

  5. Reduce speed to low and add eggs one at a time.
  6. Beat in flour mixture alternatively with buttermilk/vanilla mixture. Start and end with the flour mix.
  7. Pour into prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. For mini cupcakes it was about 12-15 minutes, cupcakes 17-20 minutes and cake was about 25-28 minutes (I don’t actually remember perfectly! It could have been longer!)
  8. Cool in pans 15-20 minutes before removing to cool on racks.

Chocolate Ganache Filling

  • 4 oz semisweet chocolate
  • 1/2 cup whipping cream
  1. Heat cream until it is just below boiling then remove and pour over chocolate (either broken up).
  2. After a couple of minutes. Stir well until smooth. Allow to cool. (I actually stirred in toasted coconut but I didn’t find it added anything to the taste.) (Don’t refridgerate).
  3. Inject into the centre of the cupcakes. Or if you don’t have the cupcake injector tip (as I call it), scoop out a  cylindrical chunk each cupcake and fill with ganache.

    Lovely!

Coconut Buttercream Icing

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 4 cup icing sugar
  • 1-2 tsp coconut extract (or as much as needed! mine was a little weak!)
  1. Beat butter for about 2 minutes on its own until smooth and creamy and pretty looking!
  2. Add icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Add coconut extract to taste. You may need to add water to get the proper consistency if your coconut extract is potent!
  3. Top your cupcakes with the icing!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake – my 30th birthday cake!

Posted: July 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Recipe | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments »

Me and my cake!

Birthdays are pretty special regardless but I think some are more special than others. 16 is a big deal as it brings about the freedom of a drivers licence, in BC (and most of Canada) 19 is important since it signifies what I am going to call “the new responsibilities that go along with being legal drinking age”, and then it is 30. There is no real reason that 30 should be special as nothing actually changes in life at that age but it seems that 30 is the end of the “younger years”. To me it has always been the age where you really start to ‘get’ life. You know who you are. You know what you want (and of course don’t want). You know what is important to you. You have the ability to say no to the things that aren’t. And you just really are ready for real life to “bring it!” That was me this past weekend. And just to be clear: I actually had been looking forward to my 30s for years! It even happened that my 30th birthday was on a Saturday!

So it may have rained... but it was still fun!

The day started early – by my choice. I wanted to run a race. Now I have run enough races that it wasn’t like I wanted to do something new and exciting on my 30th, I just wanted to start the year with something I loved and something that I find important in my life! So a 10km race in the rain! It was a blast. I had 3 friends join for the run and one that came as “support crew”. The beginning was a lot of fun as 3 of us chased each other and traded on the lead. And then it settled in to me following closely behind one friend for the rest of the race while the other two followed not far behind. I was hoping that I would have this burst of speed at the end and pass my friend but apparently he also had some kick for the end so I followed in behind 13 seconds after him at a decent race time of 53min35sec. A good start to the day!

The Chocolate Batter... it is SO delicious!

Anyways, this is a baking blog so I better cut to the chase! Of course I needed to make a cake. I understand that some may think it is taboo to make your own cake but I really wanted to make it! For me it was a special treat! I love making desserts for other people and I love to make perfect desserts for the tastes of the recipient (so mango cake for my mango loving friend, chocolate coconut cupcakes for my friend that has loves that flavour combo,  lemon for the lemon lovers, etc). So for me, it was extra special to make the cake that I would want! Instead of it being a hassle or extra work for me when I should be “enjoying”, it turned into being allowed to make MY perfect cake! What a treat!

The Peanut Butter Batter... also delicious!

My favourite flavour combination of all time isn’t very refined or very mature: it is the classic chocolate and peanut butter. I love it. It is simply the perfect balance! Of course this is what my cake had to be. I had made chocolate cupcakes (I’ll post those later this week) the previous weekend so I made the middle layer of the cake from that and froze it (I’ll add the link for that part of the cake once I write it). The other two layers – top and bottom – had to be peanut butter cake. And between the layers, well that was a mixture of several things. First, on the bottom was chocolate ganache (leftover from the cupcakes as well) and a peanut butter buttercream. Then, between the 2nd & 3rd layers was leftover chocolate marshmallow mousse (or that is what I am calling it). (Apparently I needed to use up some leftovers!) The cake was then covered in more peanut butter buttercream. And then came the home made chocolate fondant. I thought this was a good time to try making my own! That will be a post all on its own! (If you choose to make this recipe, it is not necessary to use the same fillings as I did! But if you want my opinion, I would go with the Chocolate Marshmallow Mousse filling.)

It turned out AMAZING! Although I don’t love the taste of fondant, I love how it seals in the moisture and makes for a more delicious cake! This fondant was also tastier and less gummy than most. We went for dinner at a fantastic restaurant that had prepared a 3 course meal especially for us (with a menu that had my name on it!) including dessert but everyone was still ok with eating a 2nd dessert and most finished it!! Those that didn’t (including myself) took home their leftovers! Although it was quite rich, I only heard rave reviews (unless they were just being nice to me because it was my birthday!)

Fondant'ed cake sans decorations

Now for the shape, I couldn’t just do a regular round or square cake – I wanted a giant Whoopie Pie cake! (Just in case someone missed it – I love making Whoopie Pies and you should check out my Whoopie Pie blog!) So I carved a little here and there, cut the top to a dome shape, carved the chocolate cake to be about an inch smaller in diameter and then shaped the fondant over the top. I also piped more peanut butter buttercream around the outside as the “filling” for the Whoopie Pie! It turned out almost identical to my vision in my head (except for the imperfections in the fondant).

On the top, well I couldn’t write “Happy Birthday Becky!” That seemed a little odd. So I went with a quote from a movie. Although I am not “13 Going on 30″, like I said before, I had been looking forward to 30 as I saw myself being “Flirty, 30 and Thriving”… uh oh, as I write this now I just realized it is supposed to be “30, Flirty and Thriving”. I don’t know why I got ‘flirty’ in my head first. Oh well, too late! The cake was made and eaten as a tribute “to being flirty, 30 and thriving!”

The Finished Cake!! It was SO delicious!

Decadent Buttermilk Chocolate Cake

Ok, so I am not putting the recipe here (this post is crazy long as is!), I am putting it on another post linked here. The recipe made enough for 1-9″ layer, 12 regular sized cupcakes and 12 mini cupcakes. If you want to just use it for this cake, you should likely only make 1/2 the recipe and make an additional 6-8 cupcakes (or make 2 layers and freeze one for use later).

Peanut Butter-cup Cake
(from Best-Loved Desserts by Good Housekeeping – an awesome cookbook!)

  • Mixing up the Peanut Butter-cup Cake

    2 cups flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup soft butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vaninlla
  • 2/3 cup milk
  1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease 2 9″ cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
  2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda.
  3. With a stand mixer, beat butter and peanut butter a minute or so until creamy. Add both sugars and continue beating for a few more minutes. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla.
  4. Alternate between adding the flour and the milk, begin & end with the flour. Beat just until smooth.
  5. Split batter between the two pans and bake about 40-45 minutes.
  6. Cool cake in pan 15-20 min before removing it to cool completely on a rack.

Chocolate Ganache

Scald 1/2 cup of whipping cream but don’t let it boil (it should just start to have bubbles on the top.) Pour over 1/2 cup or 4 oz chopped semi-sweet chocolate. Let sit 2 min then stir until smooth. Allow to cool before using.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

Oops, I should have payed more attention to what I did! I just made this up as I went and didn’t measure a single thing. Basically what it was was 1/2-3/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, 1 tsp vanilla and about 3-4 cups of icing sugar. Add cream/milk 1 tsp at a time until the icing is a good consistency for icing. Sorry I can’t say for sure what it was! (I actually used some leftover cream cheese icing and added peanut butter and more sugar to it so this is why I really don’t know!)

Chocolate Marshmallow Mousse Filling

See the filling here for the Whoopie Pies I previously made.

Chocolate Fondant

This recipe and process will get its own entire page! But you will have to wait a couple days!

Assembly:

Mmm... that was one good piece of cake!! YUM!!!

Of course you can use whatever filling you want but this is what I did!

  1. Start with a layer of the Peanut Butter Cake.
  2. Spread ganache over the top and then peanut butter buttercream over the cake layer.
  3. Cover with the chocolate cake layer.
  4. Spread the Chocolate Marshmallow Mousse on top of the chocolate cake.
  5. Top with the Peanut Butter Cake.
  6. Cover the whole thing with Peanut Butter Buttercream.
  7. Cover with rolled chocolate Fondant!

Amazingly Delicious Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted: July 13, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cookies, Recipe | Tags: , | 5 Comments »

Have you heard of such a thing as someone that hasn’t ever eaten cookie dough or cake batter? Seems like insanity to me but I recently found out that a friend, and a frequent baker, actually fell into this category. I could not believe it. I really couldn’t. How could someone bake regularly and never even taste the pre-baked goodness? Apparently her mother had told her that the raw eggs would make her sick “and she would die”. Now this seems fair to believe when you are a child, but as an adult? My mom had told me that it would give me worms… I never believed her as I saw her frequently dip into the bowl herself but that was the claim. I personally think that eating the batter/dough is one of my favourite parts of baking! So in comes these cookies…

The first time, I made them was for two reasons, oh actually three!  One was because I missed baking cookies! I have been making so many cakes/cupcakes/whoopie pies lately but it has been so long since I last made cookies and even longer since I made Chocolate Chip Cookies. The second was because I felt like my friend needed to try cookie dough and her birthday was coming (what better than cookie dough for a birthday gift??). And finally, I wanted to take these with me for my mom and I to share while at my brother’s place. I meant to actually share them with everyone at my brother’s but my mom and I may have gotten a little carried away with eating them…

These are the ones made with Spelt Flour - crispy but they still had their own appeal.

So I had to try these twice before proclaiming them amazing! The first time I made them was for the above reasons and since my mom has a wheat sensitivity, I made them with spelt flour. I had read about this recipe on two different blogs (one linked to the other) and every comment on there described them as “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie” so I was disappointed when they came out crisp and crunchy. They were still delicious and chocolate-y and like I said, my mom and I still devoured them but they weren’t what I was looking for. (I also didn’t melt my butter the first time – I thought softened should be good enough but I won’t try that again!)

I had to try again! If everyone else thought they were so amazing, I figured that with regular flour, they must be better! And oh was I glad I made them again! I shared most of the batch but LOVED the ones I kept for myself. I added some Skor bits to the batter this time but there is no reason it is required! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! I will be making these regularly!

Amazingly Delicious Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

How could someone not want to eat this deliciousness??

adapted from The Baker Chick and Annie’s Eats but originally from Baking Illustrated

  • 2 cups plus 2 tbsp. flour
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup Skor/Heath (optional – you could also add any nuts, coconut, peanut butter cups etc of your choice!)
  1. Preheat oven 325°.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda & salt).
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer (or by hand I suppose!), beat butter and sugars well. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla and beat well.
  4. Add dry ingredients and beat on low speed until combined. Stir in chocolate chips & any additional things you are adding! Eat some dough – it is definitely required! The cookies will fail otherwise!
  5. Scoop, or spoon if you are not fortunate enough to have a fabulous cookie scoop, cookies onto prepared sheets.
  6. Bake 10-12 minutes until the cookies look baked on the top. I find that they didn’t get very dark but the tops lost their “dough-like” appearance. It is better to underbake than overbake!
  7. Cool the cookies on the sheet about 5 minutes before moving them to a rack to cool completely.
Enjoy these little bites of perfection!!

Perfection

Fudgey Rich Chocolate Cake with Toasted Marshmallow Filling for Father’s Day!

Posted: June 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Recipe | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

I don’t know how I was convinced… for obvious reasons for those that know me, I don’t normally celebrate Father’s Day. But somehow this year I was coerced into joining my friend, her son, her fiance, her fiance’s two kids, his ex-wife (and the mother of his kids), and his mother for Father’s Day dinner and the celebration that went along with it. Part of the persuasion came about because my friend asked if I would make a cake for the event instead of repaying her the $10 I owed her. This seemed like a good idea to me and since I had no other reason to bake, it gave me a great excuse to give my KitchenAid a workout! So between having to go over to drop off the cake and the continued assurance that I should go for dinner and that it wouldn’t be weird, I gave in.

I find it kind of funny how friendships evolve. This friend started out a “gym-friend” but has evolved into more of a friendship than that. We will always have our shared passions for exercise and food, but there is also more. Now I am part of the family! It started out a random dinner with her son, her fiance (also a friend of mine) and his daughter. Then I was at her son’s birthday dinner. Then I was being invited to Father’s Day dinner. And while there, his daughter insisted that I come to her birthday dinner! Probably the most amusing part of the evening was when her son tried to convince the grandmother (85) that I was his sister. Considering my friend is Taiwanese and I am blond haired, blue (well grey really) eyed, it is pretty obvious that this isn’t true. Another interesting thing to note here is ages: my friend is exactly 15 years older than me, her son is just over 15 years younger than me. So all in all, it is sort of an odd mix but somehow it all works quite well!

Anyways, on to the cake. Any time I make a cake for this friend (seems that this is the 3rd cake/cupcake that I have made for her this year… how did that happen?) she always requests a chocolate cake with vanilla icing. I am so much more creative than that and always try to encourage her to think bigger but she likes the classic flavours. Well this time I figured that I would make the filling a little different and try another Sweetapolita recipe that I had been admiring for Toasted Marshmallow filling! That is almost the same as vanilla, right? It was kind of sticky and messy to make but it tasty fun and toasty. The flavour isn’t as strong once it is sandwiched between chocolate but it is a different texture and I quite liked it! I still put regular vanilla buttercream on the outside but at least the inside was different! Also, I tried a new chocolate cake recipe. I really love this recipe! I think I liked it better than the cake I made the week because the cake was a little more dense and a little more chocolatey, but still nice and moist. The Black Magic/Rich and Decadent Chocolate Cake was also delicious and moist, but it was a little airier and I think I have decided I like a bit of a fudgey texture to my cakes!

Fudgey Rich Chocolate Cake

(changed quite a bit from from the Chocolate Cake in Company’s Coming Chocolate Everything )

Pre-icing. Just cake and Filling!

  • 3 oz semisweet chocolate
  • 1/4 cup cocoa
  • 1 cup hot coffee
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 tsp vaniklla
  • 2 1/8 cup all purpose flour (1/8 cup = 2 Tb)
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup plain yogurt
  1. Pour hot coffee over chocolate and cocoa. Stir until the chocolate is melted and the cocoa mixes evenly in.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or just another bowl and with a hand mixer), beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time and then the vanilla. Beat well.
  3. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
  4. Add flour in 3 parts alternating with the yogurt to the butter/sugar mix (so flour, yogurt, flour, yogurt, flour). Add chocolate mixture and mix well.
  5. Pour into a greased pan (the recipe says 2 8-inch rounds but I did a 9″ square pan and a small ramekin and just made it a deep cake).
  6. Bake at 350°F for 35-40 min or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for at least 30 minutes and then take out to allow it to cool completely.

Toasted Marshmallow Frosting (from Sweetapolita)

This sort of shows the filling: it ends up with little pieces of toasted marshmallow throughout! So do not expect a perfectly smooth icing!

  • 4 cups mini marshmallows
  • 1 cup icing sugar (confectioners’ or powdered)
  • 1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 7.5 oz jar of Marshmallow Fluff (or Marshmallow Cream)
  1. Spread marshmallows on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. With the cookie sheet on the lower rack of the oven, broil marshmallows until lightly browned. Don’t walk away! These need to be watched!
  2. Beat together butter and icing sugar in mixer with paddle attachment, on low until blended. Add vanilla and mix on high for about 3 minutes.
  3. Add Marshmallow Fluff and toasted marshmallows. Mix on lowest setting for about 1 minute. It ends up pretty sticky!
I cut my cake into three layers and spread the marshmallow frosting between each. Over the top, I put a basic vanilla buttercream which can be found at the bottom of this post! And then of course I decorated :) Like me, my friend is  a runner so I needed to represent that on the cake. However, he now claims he just “waddles” because of his bad knees… so the penguin emerges. Also, even with bad knees, he is an excellent tennis player so that also needed to be represented. The swooshes on the side represent his love of Nike runners!
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